


Out of the Dark

by anr



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 07:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Request: McCoy and Chapel stranded or stuck or imprisoned anywhere and having to deal with that.
> 
> Post- _STXI_.

  


* * *

  


She goes home.

It's good to be home. Great, even. She hugs her mom, and her dad, and visits with her grandmamma. She remembers thinking of them all, once, at the end, when the ship was shaking to pieces around them and thinking she would never see them again. Now, she listens to them tell her how _proud_ they are of her for doing so well on her first mission out, and how _happy_ they are that she came back to them safe and whole, and how _shocking_ it is that that mad man could have caused so much destruction.

She listens to them talk, and watches a hundred different news vids of the same. Someone, somehow, has leaked footage from the _Enterprise_ 's surveillance system of parts of the initial battle; the explosion that ripped apart B deck, killing a dozen or more, the sudden vacuuming that lost another five. The Fleet's casualty lists, she learns, are too long to read in a single night.

The nights are quiet at home, and the days too, and in the stillness, she watches and listens and reads.

She waits.

  


* * *

  


She returns to San Francisco on a day that is gloomy and foggy and cool, storms on the forecast. Streetlights and groundcars make little pools of glowing light in every direction, and she stands outside the Academy, wondering. She has graduated, according to the communiqué containing her orders, her final classes forgotten now that she has practical experience at serving on a starship in battle. Her graduation is not as accelerated as some of her other classmates -- she only had a few weeks remaining anyway -- but it's still fast enough to spin her bearings nonetheless.

She finds a bar down by the docks, smaller and less crowded than the ones popular with the Academy cadets, and orders a drink.

Orders two drinks.

She's on her third when she realises she's not the only officer in the bar, when she picks up her glass and heads towards a booth in the back, when she slides in opposite him.

He doesn't look up from his whiskey, doesn't say a word, and so neither does she.

  


* * *

  


McCoy drinks slowly, but steadily. She studies him and thinks he look tired. Exhausted. She doubts he's been sleeping and thinks that, if they were on _Enterprise_ , she would have sedated him already. Maybe both of them.

"You gonna stare all night?"

She raises an eyebrow. "You planning to sleep tonight?"

"Some night, maybe." He tips his glass in her direction. "You got your orders?"

She steals his glass from his hand, and drinks. "Yes."

"Good." He scrubs his face with his hands, and leans back in the booth. He stares at her. "You look tired."

She smiles a little, amused. "Such charm, Doctor." Finishing his drink, she places the glass on the table beside her own, and opens her mouth to suggest --

He says, "we should go."

  


* * *

  


They walk along the docks, his arm brushing against hers every other step. He doesn't seem drunk, exactly, but she probably isn't the best judge of sobriety herself right now.

"I chose you, you know," he says suddenly, breaking the quiet they'd been walking in. "For Head Nurse."

She knows. "I know."

"You'll be wanting to know why, I suppose."

She shrugs. "Not particularly." The _Enterprise_ 's Head Nurse had been Bxtii -- she had died with Dr Puri on deck six. Her replacement -- Andrews -- died two days after their return to Earth from injuries obtained when the console he was working next to exploded in their final escape. Everyone else with the same amount of experience as her is either already dead or promised to another starship, and after having worked too many shifts together to count over the past three years at Starfleet Medical, she would have been surprised only if McCoy hadn't considered her.

He glances over at her. "You're a strange one, Chapel."

 _Christine_ , she thinks. _You used to call me Christine._ "Yes, Doctor," she says instead.

  


* * *

  


Despite the influx of new recruits to the Academy, and her sudden graduation, her quarters are still hers until she ships out again. She imagines it's the same for McCoy and isn't surprised when they head that way.

They are still a few blocks away from the dorms when it starts to rain; touching her arm, McCoy heads for a nearby overhang. She follows.

  


* * *

  


The building she leans against is a historic throwback, a tourist attraction; rough bricks, unsustainable timbers, corrugated metals that amplify the sound of the rain until it echoes like a soft imitation of vacuuming atmosphere. She shudders.

In front of her, McCoy presses closer, one of his arms flat against the bricks beside her head, his other hand moving to rest lightly on her hip, sheltering her. She can see the bay behind his shoulder, a shifting grey that flickers with lightning as the breeze picks up, brushing them with a sheen of rain. The docks appear deserted in the changing weather.

"We're alone," she says unnecessarily, and for a brief second wonders if they _really_ are, if they're the only two people left, just her and McCoy on a world created for billions...

He shrugs. "Guess everyone else had the better sense to stay out of the rain."

They're not that far from the Academy, and it's not like the rain will hurt them. They could run for it. _Should_ run for it.

"I was in Dr Puri's office giving him the duty roster updates when the Captain called for the red alert," she says instead. "We came out of warp and that was it. Dr Puri and Nurse Bxtii ran for deck six and I started the prep for triage and --" She breaks off, unsure why she just told him all of that.

For a moment McCoy says nothing. Then, "I was on the bridge." He doesn't elaborate.

 _We survived_ , she thinks. _They died, and we didn't, and now here we are, alone._

Leaning forward, she kisses him.

  


* * *

  


They have almost done this before. A drunken kiss once after a night out with mutual friends and before they really knew each other. A long shift at Medical when they finally did, their bodies too close and their hands linked in the aftermath of a surgery that should have gone better. But they've never followed through, never taken it any further, and she's never been sure why.

She's still not sure why.

But his mouth slants over hers without hesitation as his hand tightens on her hip. And when she steals an arm around his back, when she pulls him in closer, her leg sliding around his and her hair catching on the bricks, his other hand leaves the wall and finds the curve of her thigh, fingers just slipping under the hem of her skirt.

The rain intensifies.

She can taste the whiskey he was drinking, can feel the roughness of the bricks behind her and the heavy press of his body against hers. Her heart is pounding and she can't hardly breathe without breathing in him and his hands are dragging higher as his mouth lowers, tracing the line of her jaw, her neck. She arches into his touch as best as she can and works her hands between them, finding the edge of his shirt, the planes of his back, the heat of his skin.

He says something, the words humming unintelligibly on her skin, and she hooks her leg around his hip, pulling him flush against her. She gasps.

He rocks against her, once, twice, then again and again, his hips, his _cock_ , hard between her thighs, rubbing over her sex, her clit, even through their clothes, fingers tight on her flesh and she grinds back as best as she can, wanting, _wanting_ \--

The storm breaks, and so do they.

  


* * *

  


They kiss, after. Lazy and sweet, like they have all the time in the world, like this wasn't at all as desperate as it was. He's still pressing her against the wall, still sheltering her from the rain, but the urgency is gone and his hands are gentle on her sides. She cups his face and keeps him close.

"Okay?" he murmurs.

They're still alone, she knows. Still the only two people _here_. But maybe, just maybe...

"Yeah," she says, nodding. She breathes out. "Okay."

  


* * *

  


In the distance, the clouds roll back out over the bay.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/524024.html>


End file.
